I Love You More Than You Love Him
by shasa
Summary: Sasuke has been brought back to the village by Naruto and finds that Sakura has changed in ways that he hadn't been prepared for. Sakura doesn't care. She's found happiness and a substitute for love elsewhere, since she'll always love him.ONESHOT!


My first Naruto fanfic!

I don't own Naruto, nor any of the characters. Save Senji. ;)

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><p>The first time I saw them I brushed it off. Naruto had dragged me to Ichiraku's for another 6 bowls of sodium saturated kidney killing ramen. Surprisingly, on the other side of Naruto sat my (ex?)teammate. I hadn't seen her as often as I thought I would have after my return, but it didn't faze me. She had always been chasing after me, even after my...departure from Konoha. Her pink hair was curled painstakingly, framing her heart shaped face.<p>

Her eyes were made up and her outfit definitely came out of Ino's closet. I leaned over the counter, under the pretense of eating my pork ramen (with extra tomatoes), and glanced even further down the counter disinterestedly. There was a man next to her. Someone I recognized vaguely, I had probably seen them once or twice around Konoha. Definitely a civilian. Maybe he was a colleague from the hospital? If this was a friendly dinner then she was a little overdressed. My eyes widened minutely and then narrowed as the thought struck me; were they on a date...?

Why am I even interested in Sakura's love life? It's none of my business, I firmly told myself, but I kept watching anyways.

As she got up, put her hand on his shoulder and murmured soft words in his ear I became irritated. When he stood and paid and she shyly took his hand as they walked together I decided I'd had enough ramen.

I slammed money down on the counter and ignored the stares and Naruto shouting "OI TEME!" as I stormed off in the opposite direction.

The second time it wasn't so much seeing as it was hearing. I was picking out cans of tomatoes when I heard Ino Yamanaka's unmistakable high pitched squeal.

"Forehead that's so great! I'm so glad you're official!"

I could imagine Sakura blushing and stuttering like she did all those years ago. I slammed the can back onto the shelf with more force than necessary.

"Does this mean you're over... him?"

I had no doubt who they were talking about. This was the question I asked myself when I saw her, and I felt myself tense in anticipation of the answer.

"Oh Ino-pig! Why would you ask such a thing?" My muscles relaxed "Of course I'm over him! It was just a genin crush, that's all. And after that, it just became a regular bond between teammates. Whatever feelings I had for him are long gone – ah!"

I crushed the can of "roasted with garlic!" in my hand. Her words echoed in my head, and I wondered offhandedly what had provoked the stormy clouds of emotion that had made their reappearance.

I peered at the other cans on the shelf and coincidentally through the little gap between the shelves and into the next aisle. I saw the reason for her squeal with a wrench in my gut that I was quickly getting used to. That no-name man from the hospital had grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up in the air.

"Don't do that, Senji-kun!" I felt like I'd been slapped. I used to be Sasuke-kun once. When I was a different person, I reminded myself bitterly.

"I almost got a heart attack!" Sakura pouted. Then he kissed her. (Ino left with only one thousand giggles and "aw's") I waited for her to push him away, to slap him, to react in any way. She did react, but not in the way that I anticipated.

She pulled him in, tangled her hands in his brown _black black black it should be black _hair and he ran his hands _mine mine mine my hands_ down her back. He pushed her into a shelf and she giggled as various foodstuffs fell, forgotten, to the floor.

I should've stopped watching. I should have walked right out and straight home. But I had expressed masochistic tendencies before. I watched with an unfamiliar ache as she kissed another man.

"_Just a genin crush..."_ her words echoed in my head. I clenched my teeth. Was that all it meant to her? What happend to eternal love, to all those vows to follow me to the ends of the earth?

Was that a "_normal teammate bond"_ ? Apparently I was the only one who had thought differently. That thought was the one that jolted me back. I realized now, painfully, that I felt something for Haruno Sakura. I had claimed her as "mine" in my mind long ago. I had always expected her to be there, waiting for me...but she had moved on, it seemed. I felt resentful even though I knew those expectations had been ridiculous.

I watched, heart constricting in my chest, hands fisting, as she tangled her hands in hair that wasn't mine, as she moaned against a mouth that _wasn't mine dammit_. Those weren't my hands on her waist, on her back, tracing the gentle line of her jaw.

That line that I could draw with my eyes closed, I had imagined touching it so often. I couldn't take it anymore. If I wasn't Sasuke Uchiha what I did would've been called "fleeing".

People change. I'm living proof of that. I can't even remember what it felt like to not be in constant pain; filled with anger and hatred and vengeance. I changed to fit the mold of an avenger, now I was trying to change back to being human again.

She changed too, but it was less forced, less sudden. At least on the outside. I like to think that it was my change (sudden defection from village) that spurred hers, and that thought gives me a shred of consolance that I had some sort of lasting effect on her, something that she can remember me by.

She changed. I've seen it. I'm not sure what I expected when Naruto brought (dragged) me back. Maybe hugs and tears and kisses? Maybe tears and punches and anger. I got neither. I got professional medic treatment, a smiling face, a calm attitude.

I waited for the reinstated closeness. With time she'd come around, I told myself. With time we'd become what we used to be. Naruto complied easily enough, but Sakura... Sakura didn't. _Wouldn't..._ my mind whispered venomously.

She treated me like she treated everybody else, and it hurt, though I rigorously denied it. She treated me like everyone else...and someone else like me.

I was just an observer in her life. I watched as Senji proposed to her in the middle of the street. I watched as her beautiful, green eyes, so full of life, glistened with the tears that were finally shed. Beautiful tears. Tears of joy.

I remembered bitterly all the times that I had made her cry; out of hurt, sadness, fear, anger. Not once out of happiness. I had only hurt her, viciously broke her heart and then twisted the blade in deeper. Selfishly wanting to make her mine in the only way I knew I could. But apparently I didn't do as great a job as I thought I had.

I watched as she walked down the petal strewn aisle in a shimmering white silk dress, looking every bit as soft and delicate as her namesake. I drank the sight of her in wistfully, greedily even. After this moment she would be a married woman, no longer mine to look at. Her soft pale skin, the tiny scar on her left cheek, her full lips, her carefully done hair, with those few strands escaping in the back.

The way her eyes shone, even though I knew this was _wrong wrong wrong. _I knew that I was bad for her. I would only hurt her more; she deserved someone who could love her, someone who could make her cry tears of happiness.

I didn't deserve those green eyes filled with compassion and warmth, nor those hands of healing. I knew that I didn't deserve even the faintest companionship from her. But then why did this feel so wrong dammit?

Who am I kidding, I know exactly why. I could make her so sad, but I had the power to make her so happy. He loved her and she loved him, but he would never love her like I did – like I do. And he would never be her first love. She would always have the shadow of a certain Sasuke Uchiha in her mind, and that was all the comfort I was going to get.

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><p>"Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other." - Thornton Wilder, <em>The Bridge of San Luis Rey <em>

A/N: So my first Naruto fanfic, what do you think? I couldn't tell if it was too OOC because Sasuke is just kind of hard to write (ya know since he's like a raving psychopath and all) Review please!

Thanks for reading! :)


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